Friday, August 11, 2017

The Best Laid Schemes.....

T: The water pump isn't working. Are the valves set to 'dry camping'?

Me: Yes, and the fresh water tank is 3/4 full.

T: Well, it's not working.

Me: I'm not gonna mess with it now, will check it out when we get to our next campground. I'll reconnect the city water hose for now and fill a water jug to manually flush the toilet until we hook up to city water at tonight's campground.

T: Okay.

We're breaking camp in Ketchum, ID. Next stop: a one-nighter at a campground 20 miles east of Idaho Falls (IF) on the road to Grand Teton NP, where we plan to spend 4 nights. Later, at the IF campground, I check hoses, valves, filters; everything looks fine.

Diagnosis: death from unknown causes. No evidence of - nor reason to suspect - foul play by a party or parties unknown. Suicide is strongly suspected but no note is found.

So, we need a new water pump. It's under warranty, just need to find a RV service shop that can do the job while we wait. Trish gets online and finds a place in IF that does warranty work on Grand Design RVs - a lucky find because precious few RV shops are authorized to do warranty work. Many states have only a couple factory-authorized service shops. Yes, very lucky find.

Next morning we return to IF, arrive at RV shop, and ask the service manager to check out the water pump the same day. RV service shops are typically booked up several weeks advance, and drop-ins screw up the schedule. He reluctantly agreed, but said he didn't know when they'd get to it, would likely be after lunch. We sat around for 5 hours, finally pulled out of the shop at 2:30 PM with a new water pump.

Our best laid schemes have gone askew. We have to spend the night in IF, which means we won't beat the weekend rush to the first come-first serve campground in Grand Teton NP. We decide to bag Grand Teton and spend 6 nights in IF. Never had a burning desire to tour IF, but here we are, ready to sample Idaho Falls' greatest attractions, which will no doubt blow us away. Oh Boy!

"The best laid schemes of mice and men go often askew," is an excerpt from To a Mouse, a poem by Robert Burns, 1785.

More recently (1937), John Steinbeck quoted Mr Burns, and titled a novella, Of Mice and Men